


Dress It Up Anyway You Want

by DaiseeChain



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaiseeChain/pseuds/DaiseeChain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can dress it up any way you want, Xander's still not having any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dress It Up Anyway You Want

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers:** The whole series. Takes no account of developments in the graphic novels.
> 
> For Halloween 2010 at WriterconUK. Here be some angst.

 

 

"Why not?"

"Because."

Emma stamped her foot and crossed her arms. "Because is not an answer."

"It's all you're going to get. Now can we leave already?"

Handbag, scarf and jacket all fell on the sofa where she threw them. "I'm not sure I want to go any more."

And there it was. She was going to draw a line, and he was going to refuse to cross it. The same game, every year.

"I don't see why you won't. Sometimes I don't think I know you at all, Alexander Harris." She tossed her head in that slightly jarring way that reminded him at her worst of Buffy. Or of Buffy at her worst. Either way. Reminded him of Buffy, and he wasn't going there. Especially not at this time of the year. "Look, you can dress up if you want. I'll pay for the rental. Hell, I'll pay to buy the damn thing, but I'm not going in costume."

"But why?"

The old bitterness was gone. When he studied her now there wasn't any anger or resentment as there had been the first two years, now there was just disappointment. He had no way of knowing if she'd weather this 'insurmountable crisis' with him. Possibly she would. Probably she would. A lifetime on the Hellmouth had given a fine appreciation for choosing partners carefully, but he was still a little stuck on really strong women. Either she'd stay by him through this, or she'd decide he wasn't worth the effort and leave.

"Well?"

She was waiting for an answer. He didn't even know where to begin. No, that wasn't true. He knew exactly where to begin, he just didn't want to discuss it. "I'm going out." As she reached for her handbag he added, "Alone." The age old answer of any man to his problems - head out into the wilderness for a walkabout.

As he pulled the front door shut behind him, he could feel the silence following him out. Emma would be standing in the front room right now, deciding wether to pack up and leave him, throw his clothes out in retribution, or call her friends and go clubbing with the girls - also as retribution. He wondered if they'd still be a couple by the time he got back.

By accident he found his feet had led him to the building site. Silently padding to the office, he unlocked it, went inside, carefully moved several important blueprints, and put his feet up on the table. Then he leant down, unlocked the filing cabinet and pulled a bottle of the low-alcohol beer he kept there. It tasted like flat-bread gone wrong, but it never gave him a hangover and he could still think straight after an entire case.

Was he being fair to Emma? He couldn't keep her in the dark forever. But how weird was too weird? How dark was too dark? Maybe he should just tell her. Definitely he should just tell her. This would have been a lot easier with Anya. Anya wouldn't ask questions and then wait politely. But Anya was impolitely dead, or he wouldn't have had this problem. And she would have understood exactly where he was coming from. Except that she wouldn't. She would have been confused and cross, just like Emma, then unlike Emma she would have insisted he do what she wanted. He would have ended up dressed as a housemaid. She'd have handed him a duster and an apron and nothing else, and that would have been that.

But Anya's appetite for exploring kinks, hers, his, or anyone else's, aside, she still wouldn't have asked for this. Emma did, because Emma didn't understand, which was hardly her fault because she didn't know why he kept refusing her idea for a halloween costume, or any costume at all for that matter. She didn't understand why he practically became a shut-in for two days a year, refusing to go out or answer the door, and why he paced and fretted all evening and into the morning until she came home safe and still Emma-shaped.

Not for their house the garlands of paper jack-o-lanterns. So long as he lived there, there would be no black bats hanging on string, or cheap mummies propped up in doorways. She hadn't accused him yet of being paranoid, but she was edging toward the conversation.

How could he begin to explain the way his fingers went numb at the sight of children dressed as monsters? Or his stomach heaving when some football-scholarship sauntered past with a fake meat cleaver through his head, braying at a meat-headed comment his buddies just made? How... How to explain hurtling past her, out of their apartment, tripping over his feet in his desperation to get away, and finally running his car into a tree because he was terrified of the costume she'd brought home for him to wear for their unexpected party invitation. The last costume in the store, and it just had to be a preacher, didn't it? Couldn't have been anything else.

The gear was gone by the time he got home, bruised and adrenalin drained. She didn't mention it again, although she'd skirted past discussions on possible abuse. He did nothing to help her work out how that squared with what she knew of his childhood, even as he witnessed the moment she realized something was wrong with that theory.

Throwing back the last of the alleged-beer, he stood and stretched, freezing as he caught his reflection in the darkened window. In his head, he was still 19, still agile, skinny, and with the usual compliment of two eyes. In the window he was 26, running slightly to seed and wearing a patch that he mostly forgot existed. But it wasn't the pirate version of him that had given him pause; it was the momentary vision of a preacher standing behind him, and the way the ghost faded in more time than it took to blink.

It took a second to recognize the sound of heavy breathing as his own, and he clutched the bottle till it shattered in his hand, then swore as tiny shards of glass dug into the flesh of his palm. By the time he'd finished picking them out, the blood wasn't moving quite so fast in his body. Nobody attacking him here except himself. "Get a grip, Xander." It was sound advice. It would have seemed sounder if his voice hadn't cracked on that last word.

He'd never told them; not Buffy, not Giles, not even Willow. But it seemed now might finally be the time. The Preacher was staying longer each time he showed up, and Xander had a gut instinct the thing was just itching to be able to speak. There was no way he was waiting around for that to happen. Damn thing shouldn't exist at all. They'd defeated the guy. He was dead and gone. Again. So he had to be in Xander's own head, all of his own making. Just sitting there, waiting patiently, laughing at Xander, making him jump at shadows and reflections and stupid Halloween costumes. You could dress it up any way you wanted, Xander knew he needed help.

He kicked the desk for sheer surliness, and because it made him feel slightly more manly. A tiny bit more manly. OK, fine. Now he had a ghost in his head, glass in his hand, and a sore toe. Well, he could do something about two of those three at any rate, and maybe, just maybe, something about the ghost as well. All it was going to take was admitting to Emma that he wore a costume every damn day because he and his friends went around masquerading as normal people. He'd never been more terrified in his life, and that included the time he'd nearly said 'I do'. With any luck she'd turn out to be some sort of man-eating insect and he wouldn't have to have the conversation about the dead people in residence in his head. He sighed as he turned the key in the door to the cabin, watching as the crisp air turned his breath to steam, then trudged back home to suck one more person into the horror of life with a Sunnydale veteran.

When he finally got back, she was still there, waiting patiently. She watched him carefully as he made coffee for them both, mirroring him as he leaned against the countertop. He took a deep breath and began. "Emma, there's something I have to tell you."

 


End file.
